Goals - Week 5

I did alright with last weeks goals, but not quite as good as I had hoped for.  We had a showing of the house mid-week, so that ate into a little time since one entire evening was spent cleaning the house.

Week 4 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) -- Completed
- Prepare backing material for eBay "Tumbler" quilt and load on quilt frame -- Partially Completed - not on frame yet
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Didn't even touch
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- Definitely did 4 hours of needlepoint.  I should have the next page done soon.


So for this coming week, I have some slightly different goals....

Week 5 Goals:
- Sew 4 16-patch blocks --
- Purchase backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" --
- Load eBay "Tumbler" quilt onto frame and play --
- Take Bernice (the Bernina sewing machine) to the sewing center to be cleaned/fixed --

I also finished a Jodi Picoult book this past week.  I posted about it here.  It was a good book, but came a little close to home.

I've started reading another Lynn Austin book called "Song of Redemption".  This one is a little more religious than I typically read, but it will probably be good.  If I keep at the pace I have been going, this book will be done in a week, too.

We're expecting to get more snow this week.  In the past few weeks, we've gotten about one storm a week, although we were spared last week.  The storms tend to hit on Wednesday and just cause the one day to be bad.  However, this next one is a monster storm.  We're supposed to start getting snow Tuesday morning and its not going to stop until Wednesday evening.  Tuesday, they're expecting us to get about 3-8" during the day, which will be interesting since my car hates snow.  I may have to leave work early Tuesday.  Then Wednesday, we're supposed to get up to 16" of snow.  If the forecast holds true, I will definitely have to work from home on Wednesday.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 5

I'm a little late in publishing my stash report...but better late than never.

I don't have any pictures right now since this is a really quick post.  I was able to finish up another set of blocks for my scrappy quilt and I also started quilting Purple Squared.  Both of these used up some more stash.  I used just over 0.4 yards for the scrappy quilt (I actually made 6 blocks this week) and I used about a yard for the back of Purple Squared (picture below is from when I finished the top last year).

Here's the numbers for this week:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         1.42 yards
Used Year to Date:      4.65 yards
Net Year to Date:        7.35 yards

Picture Perfect

It seems that I'm into a book reading trend right now.  I've finished 3 books in 3 weeks now....mainly because I'm reading during my lunchtime at work.  It helps me to get my mind off work for 45 minutes and to not be looking at the computer screen.

The most recent book I finished was called "Picture Perfect" by Jodi Picoult.  This was one of Jodi's earlier books in her career.  It didn't have quite the punch and drama twists that her newer books have, but it was still very good.  For some reason, which I'm not really sure why, this book seemed to hit closer to home than her books usually do.  If you've read any of Jodi's books, they always tug at the heart strings and usually make you think very differently about the way the world can work.

This particular book is about a relationship that seems like its perfect in every way to the public.  Its a story of a unknown anthropologist falling in love with a big movie star and becoming married.  Their relationship starts out really well, but then every once in a while, the husband shows a streak of anger and violence.  It starts with just a few shoves when he got angry, then the shoves turned to smacks and kicking.  The wife would make excuses and the husband would always apologize once he realized what he had done.

While I have never been in that type of situation (thank, God), I can imagine how a woman could easily get into that type of situation.  The wife loved her husband so much and knew that if she left him, she would cause him more pain and hurt, which she couldn't bring herself to do.  Only when another person got involved did she actually get the courage to leave. 

I'm not quite sure why this one seems to bother me a bit more than the others, but while it was a good read, it was also a little disturbing.  I guess its because I could potentially see myself in that type of situation and not having the courage to leave.  I know I never have to worry about being in that situation, which makes me grateful, but none the less, it was a slightly disturbing read.

Goals - Week 4

I didn't do nearly as well this past week as I had planned.  Mainly because life got busy and I ended up hurting my back last weekend.  Having a sore back doesn't help with your goals when your goals involve cutting large pieces of fabric.  Here's the goals from week 3:

Week 3 Goals:

- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) -- Completed
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" and load quilt on frame -- not even thought about
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 5+ hrs sewn.

I also ended up finishing the book I was reading by Lynn Austin.  In just over a week, I read the entire novel called "Hidden Places".  It was a quick read, but a good read.

Week 4 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) --
- Prepare backing material for eBay "Tumbler" quilt and load on quilt frame --
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 

I've also started another book.  Now I'm reading "Picture Perfect" by Jodi Piccoult.  I generally like her books, but this one is a little harder to read than normal.  I think its one of her early books, so maybe that's why.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 4

No pictures this week.  I was only able to squeeze in a little bit of sewing this week.  The evenings were pretty hectic and I was really only able to sew part of Saturday afternoon.  However, I did make 5 more blocks for my scrappy quilt.  I also cut some more small pieces of fabric to add to the variety of fabrics in the scrappy quilt.

So my numbers are still improving:

Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         0.35 yards
Used Year to Date:      3.23 yards
Net Year to Date:        8.77 yards

How did everyone else do?

Goals - Week 3

I did alright this past week on my goals.  I didn't get as many 16-patch blocks done as I had wanted to, but I was close.

Week 2 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) -- completed 3 16-patch blocks, and 2 more are almost done.
- Add border #3 to "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Completed!
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 6+ hours completed. 


In fact, I was so good with "Starry Night" that I actually finished another page of the pattern.

The portion with the scattered stitches is page 16.  So I now have 15 full pages complete.  I think there's 2 more full pages on the row I'm working on along with a partial page on the far right.  The bottom row of pages are only about 60% full, so the bottom row should go faster.  At this rate though, I'm finishing 1 page per month, which means I still won't be done until October!

I also finished reading the 3rd book of the "Inheritance" series.  The book is called "Brisingr".  I'm always surprised at how well written these books are and the fact that the writer is only in his early 20s.  I think I read somewhere that he wrote the first book, "Eragon", when he was only 16 or 17.  It seems to be taking a long time for the 4th book to be finished up, but I'm sure it will be well worth it.

Week 3 Goals:

- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) --
- Prepare backing material for "Shine on Bayou Cane" and load quilt on frame --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 3 hrs sewn as of 1/19

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 3

I made more good progress this week on Shine on Bayou Cane and the scrap quilt.  Both of these meant that I used more fabric this week - yay! ;-)

I actually finished the top for Shine on Bayou Cane.  Its not quilted yet, but the top itself is done. 

 

So I used some fabric for the last border on Shine on Bayou Cane and I also used some fabric this week making blocks for my scrappy quilt.  Here are the blocks so far:

Here's the numbers for this week:
Added This Week:       0 yards
Added Year to Date:    12 yards
Used This Week:         1.53 yards
Used Year to Date:      2.88 yards
Net Year to Date:        9.12 yards

So far so good...just need to keep using the fabric! :-)

EBay Quilt Top

I've always had trouble taking one of my own quilt tops and testing out new quilting techniques on it.  There's something about putting all the effort into a top and then potentially messing it up because of bad quilting.  However, there's only one way to get better at quilting...and that's to do it.  So instead of using one of my own quilt tops, I purchased a 53x54 quilt top off eBay.  With shipping, I paid less than $15 for the top shown below.

 

It looks like a cute and fun quilt top.  I can add borders to it to make it a little bigger, but I could just leave it alone at 53x54.  I may add a 6" border to it (of possibly 2 border to add up to 6 or 8") to make it about 60x60.  I can use stash for both the border and the backing (yeah for stash busting) and since I didn't put a lot of time into making this myself, I'm hoping I'll have an easier time trying out something different for the quilt top.  Time will tell.... ;-)

Goals - Week 2

I think I did fairly well at completing my goals from last week.  Here's a recap and what I accomplished:

Week 1 Goals:
- Sew 56 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (avg. 8 per day) -- Completed sewing 96 squares together.
- Piece border #2 for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- Completed and sewn onto the quilt.
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- Definitely completed 4 hours, probably a little more.

I also finished reading the 2nd book in the "Inheritance" series by Christopher Paolini.  The first book was "Eragon" (which was made into a horrible movie) and the second book was "Eldest".  They are thick books, but are fun and quick reads.  I definitely recommend reading the series.


So the goals for this coming week are pretty similar to last week.

Week 2 Goals:
- Sew 64 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (total of 4 16-patch blocks) --
- Add border #3 to "Shine on Bayou Cane" --
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 3.5 hrs as of 12-JAN

Hopefully I'll be able to complete these this week, but considering I won't be able to play hooky with Jury Duty, I may not get as many 2.5" squares sewn as I would like.  However, its still better than having to sit on a jury that was for an attempted murder case.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 2

This week was a good week for stash busting.  I used a little over 1 yard of fabric for the borders on Judy's Shine on Bayou Cane pattern from her book Weekend Quilts.  I really liked the quilt when she did it as a Quilt-for-an-Hour project, so I decided to do that one first when I got her book.  I'm saving some pictures until I get the top completed.

I also used up some 2.5" squares this week (actually, a total of 80 of them) to start making 8" blocks for a scrappy quilt.  My goal had been to use 56 of them this week (so it would be 1/4 yard), but I was able to get a bit of sewing done on Wednesday when I was released from Jury Duty and again yesterday.  I hope I can keep it up and I'll blow through the 12 yards in no time. ;-)

 

Stash Report

Used this Week:           1.35 yards
Used Year to Date:       1.35 yards
Added this Week:        0.0 yards
Added Year to Date:   12.0 yards
Net Used for 2011:     -10.09 yards

Goals - Week 1

Since I fell off the wagon a bit last year in respect to a lot of things, I'm going to try to keep weekly goals on here...and see how well I do.  The goals will be simple and do-able things that I think I can actually accomplish in a week.  Sometimes breaking things down into smaller pieces makes it easier to accomplish the tasks.


Week 1 Goals:
- Sew 56 2.5" squares together for scrap quilt (avg. 8 per day) -- 16 completed on 1/5
- Piece border #2 for "Shine on Bayou Cane" -- ~50% complete on 1/5
- Sew 4 hours of needlepoint on "Starry Night" -- 2.5 hrs complete on 1/6

I think I can accomplish those goals.  If I do more than what's on the list, I'll update it next week with what was actually accomplished.

Stashbusting 2011 - Week 1

The past few years, Judy Laquidara has had a stash-busting effort going on that she posts on her blog, Patchwork Times.  Last year, I started out really well with reporting my efforts on using the fabric I have versus buying new fabric.  Then things got hectic and I fell off the wagon.   Not so much with buying fabric, but with reporting.

Overall, I did pretty well last year.  The only fabric I bought (with the exception of one fat quarter sampler -- yikes 6 yards worth at the end of the year)  was for specific quilts for new babies.  I used up some of the fabric I had bought the previous year, which definitely helped with my numbers and kept me in the positive (stash used) for the majority of the year.

I'm hoping that in 2011, I'll be a little better at this and posting in general.  The last 4 months of 2010 I just totally fell off the wagon when it came to blogging.  Maybe with the start of the new year, things will go a little better from a blogging perspective.

So while my report is a few hours early (Saturday evening vs Sunday morning) here's the totals for week 1.  This includes some fabric I received for Christmas, so I'm already starting in the hole a little.

The fabric I received were fat quarter samplers from Connecting Threads:

Flower Basket Sampler

Dark Solid Samplers

Stash Report

Used this Week:           0.0 yards
Used Year to Date:       0.0 yards
Added this Week:       12.0 yards
Added Year to Date:   12.0 yards
Net Used for 2011:     -12.0 yards

Since I got the Go! Cutter just before Christmas (present to myself courtesy of an award at work), I plan on cutting up some stash in the upcoming weeks to get it ready for using.  I'm hoping the Go! will really help with cutting the excess fabric into usable bits and it will be a lot faster than hand-cutting it! ;-)

Happy Quilting!
Sarah